New Home | The things I've learnt since moving out for the first time

Look at us. Hey, look at us. Who would have thought it? Not me [insert Paul Rudd GiF here for anyone who hasn’t the slightest clue about that introduction there] 

 After 25 years of living at home, (I never did the whole move away to university thing) *drum roll please* I have in fact moved out, fled the nest, left the coop, you get the gist. 

 Me and Jay had been thinking of moving in together for a while. I believe the conversation started up more seriously towards the end of last year having spent a tough few months apart during lockdown. We’ve always lived in different cities since the very beginning of our relationship so travelling to one another has always been difficult, to say the least, let alone throwing a lockdown into the mix. 

We were planning on moving regardless, my mum getting a place with her new partner and for a time I was also planning on tagging along but after a lot of deliberation, the time just felt right. 

In mine and Jays time spent apart, absence did indeed make our hearts grow stronger and with our relationship hitting its now 7-year mark it felt like now or never. It was very much a conversation which began as a ‘can we do this?’ to a ‘shit, we can do this, this is actually something we can make a reality’ Fast forward to today and it’s been 3 months since we moved into our new home, which feels very weird to say given that it feels as though we’ve been here 3 years already. I don’t think we ever expected to settle in and feel at home, quite so quickly. Maybe we’d been ready for this for a long time?

 Though in saying that there was always going to be that emotional transition, something anyone will tell you when leaving home for the first time. 

 The first week in our new place I barely gave myself a second to really stop and take it all in, like being on a rollercoaster and not wanting to look down or being in the type of dream you don’t want to wake up from I couldn’t quite adjust to my new reality, I was happy, really happy we’d actually made it happen but it hadn’t quite sunk in, something that wasn’t helped by throwing myself straight back into work the next week following the move at the weekend. I kept everything moving, just like a train keeping everything running on its course, I knew the minute I stopped it’d hit me like a train grinding to a holt and boy did it hit me. 

Following the move, I’d managed to see my mum and the cats over a socially distanced cup of coffee it was only then I realised that when it was time to leave I was going back to my new home, the home I was used to was no longer with my mum or with the cats in my hometown I had a new home in a new city with my boyfriend and though that new reality delighted me it also made me feel really homesick for the first time since I’d left. I returned home to a candlelit curry after I finished it I cried, I sobbed like a baby in Jay's arms. Luckily for us both, we were both going through it, it's our first experience of moving away from home, going it alone neither of us had done university or lived away from home for the first time so this was all new to us. It wasn’t the experience we’d hoped for, wanting to show people our new home and celebrate this new beginning, lockdown meant that we couldn’t do any of that with the people we love, we still haven’t.  

We have done a lot though in the 3 months that we have been in, we’ve made it our own hanging wall art, buying a rug, getting some new additions to our (plant) family but most of all we’ve adjusted to this new way of living, we’ve discovered what it’s like living in each other's pockets, we’ve made new routines, new traditions and discovered new things, so from me to you this post is a little lighthearted look at our new place and the things we’ve come to learn moving out for the first time.

 The first time going shopping is incredibly exciting you’ll feel like a grown-up for the first time in your life, all this food you can buy, for you. You can eat ice cream for breakfast and cake for dinner, if you really want however the practically soon kicks in, you need to buy, salt, pepper, sauce and tea bags who knew they didn’t exist as standard in a kitchen?? You’ll love buying this and that until you realise damn living is expensive. From then it a bit mundane really, you’ll find yourself buying the same food, chucking in eggs, milk and wine (necessary to adult) and banning yourself from the biscuit, cakes and sweets isle week in week out. 

Much like shopping cooking will very much follow suit, the first week you’ll get excited for cooking meals, mixing ingredients, experimenting with new dishes and treating yourself to desserts after it’s ‘Shall we have pasta, that’s quick?’ Replied with ‘yeah that’ll do’

 Cleaning is a never-ending cycle though I must admit since moving I’ve realised I quite enjoy the process of cleaning. You can’t deny the real satisfaction in stepping back and admiring a clean and tidy living space but why it that, that moment passes in the blink of an eye and before know it you’re watching dust beginning to settle and screaming ‘why are there bits on the floor, again?!’ And so it begins.

 Much like fleabag, I'd like to agree that putting pine nuts on your salad *fucking does* make you an adult. In a similar fashion, I’ve found a new love of rocket something that was started courtesy of Hello Fresh, since then no other type of salad leaf will do its rocket or knock it, or something along those lines.

You’ll never be satisfied with the decor *justtt* as you get it looking how you want it you sit for days wondering if that candle will sit better on a different shelf or if you should move that chair why wouldn’t you keep moving things around? It’s your place. 

 With each passing day, you’ll realise you’re becoming more and more like your mum. 

The Hoover gets ran around before guests arrive and everything is cleaned to within an inch of its life, no exceptions. You can’t help but twitch when someone doesn’t take their shoes off on arrival or happens to drop a crumb on the floor. 

The list of things you want to buy for your new place never ends. There’s always something you want to get to fully make your place your own, just one more picture on the wall or a light shade to complete the room. Chances are a few months down the line you’ll want to replace them all over again.

Despite all this the novelty of living in your own place never tires old, you’ll still look around and say to yourself ‘this is home, this is my home’ you’ll still love having your very own keys and getting post even if it’s a statement from the bank or a leaflet for dominos and most of all you'll feel most at home surrounded by those you love.